A prosperous but noisy city: Noise analysis in New York ¶
Introduction¶
The "City That Never Sleeps"—New York is a city of superlatives: America's biggest; the most exciting; the business and cultural capitals; the nation's trendsetter. The city seems to pull in the best and the brightest from every corner of the country. The city aroused our great interest.
To begin with, let's look at a map of the five boroughs of New York City!
We found an interesting dataset called NYC311 on the NYC open data website .
311 hotline is a non-emergency phone number that people can call in many cities to find information about services, make complaints, or report problems like graffiti or road damage. Even in cities where a different phone number is used, 311 is the generally recognized moniker for non-emergency phone systems.
Since its inception, 311 has evolved with technological advances into a multi-channel service that connects citizen with government, while also providing a wealth of data that improves how cities are run.
The dataset is about the records of 311 Service Requests in New York City from 2010 to 2020. It is a great material because we want to discover New yorkers' life and present a panorama to you！
The first inspiration is about what New Yorkers complain most in their daily life.
It is easy to see that 'Noise-Residential' was most frequently complained about. Furthermore, we found that most of the noise cases have been sorted into 5 main clases：
- Residential
- Street/Sidewalk
- Commercial
- Vehicle
- Noise (means others)
and then 36 subclasses (e.g. Barking dog or construction equipment). It indicates that the data has been well organized to cover a great number types of noise. Therefore, we believe noise can be the best representation of some aspects of New Yorkers' life.
We would like to present some interesting insights into the current state of how New Yorkers live and how it has changed by exploring through temporal and spatial distribution and variation from different types of noise.
Link¶
View our explainer Python notebook here.
Choropleth map for distribution of noise cases acrss different blocks for 2019.¶
In the first place, we would like to know something about the recent situation. 2019 is chosen as the the year to analyze because it is not affected by the outbreak of coronavirus. As New York Open Data describes, 311 is receiving the unprecedented volume of calls during the Covid-19 crisis and the data may not present a full picture since January 2020.
We considered to sum up all the noise cases. It is of great interst to see how the reported noise cases are distributed among blocks of different zipcodes by choropleth map. Here is an interactive map which shows not only overall distribution of the reported cases but also detailed information of each block. When you put your mouse on a maker and click it, you will get the zip number, block name and the density of noise (Evaluated by cases per hectare). Please try it out.
It illustrates that Manhattan is the most noisy borough as most of the blocks in Manhattan are in dark colors which mean a higher density of reported cases. Brooklyn or The Bronx is deemed as the second only with some blocks in dark. For the other two boroughs, the noise level is much lower.
It may raise a speculation that Manhattan is the most crowded and Brooklyn/The Bronx ranks second because noise level is highlighly related to human acitivity. We obtained the demographic data of New York City from Wikipedia in 2018. We think it is appropriate because the comparison for population changes very little in two consecutive years. Estimate means it is a projection from last demographic census for it is not conducted every year in the United States. As the table illustrates, it is the case. Manhattan has the largest population density, 27,826 persons per km2 while Brooklyn has the second largest, 14,649 persons per km2. The Bronx ranks third but it has 13,231 persons per km2, which is very close to Brooklyn.
The map may also raise a question that no blocks which have more than 22 cases per hectare can be directly observed in the map when you have a overview of the New York city. Please do not be confused and zoom in Manhattan, you will find some small blocks with rather high noise density. For instance, we have detected a block which had around 25.6 cases per hectare in 2019. However, after the investigation of the area, we found that the block is actually a skyscapper with flagship shops of fashion brands on its ground floor. Besides, it needs to be mentionted that Manhattan is the borough where most of the blocks of high noise level are located.
Fig.5 The investigation of one of the loudest blocks shown on the map by Google Map . The left shows the location, name and density of cases of the block. The right shows the practical situation of its enviroment. The block is loacated on the right side of H&M, which is a skyscapper named Kratter Building.
The map above provides information for those who are very noise-conscious when considering the accommodation. Therefore, we would like to compare the average property price with one of the noise complaints. The analysis of property price is done by Saidakbarp
From the comparison, We found that Manhattan is the most expensive and loudest place to live. Central part of Brooklyn also has pricier accomodation and loud enviroment. It is believed that high noise level indicates convinience for recreataion and transportation which leads to high property price. Furthermore, high property price does not sufficiently indicate high noise level, which can be confirmed by some areas on the Staten Island. It is also a common for some places with luxurious mansions in peaceful environment and a few super rich living in.
Fig 6. The comparison of the noise level (left) and property price for each block (right). They have a similar distribution generally. However, it needs to be mentioned that the Saidakbarp may have had some zipcodes invalid as the black color means a default value.
Distributions of various noise subtypes in different boroughs¶
Noise is divided into about five categories in 311 dataset, namely 'Noise-residential','Noise-Vehicle', 'Noise-Street','Noise-Commercial','Noise(others)'. However,36 subsets are found under these 5 categories.These arouse our great interest.Thus,we made an interactive bar that shows the distribution of top ten noise subcategories in the five boroughs of New York in 2019.
The x-axis of the interactive bar above is sorted by the total volume of top 10 noise descriptors (refers to subcategories). Let's start with the subcategory that has the most complaints:Loud music/party.Brooklyn has the largest percentage, nearly 30%, the proportions of the other three boroughs also varied little, while staten island accounts for just 2%. We believe that, first of all, the number of people in each borough and the average population per square meter is one of the main factors affecting the volume of noise complaints, so we wonder if the population density of Staten island is less than that of the other four boroughs.
We gathered information about the population in the five boroughs of New York,as it cound be seen from Figure 4 and the results were exactly what we expected. In terms of population density, Manhattan has the highest population density, followed by Brooklyn, The Bronx, Queens and Staten Island. $$𝑀𝑎𝑛ℎ𝑎𝑡𝑡𝑎𝑛(42\%)>𝐵𝑟𝑜𝑜𝑘𝑙𝑦𝑛(21\%)>𝑇ℎ𝑒𝐵𝑟𝑜𝑛𝑥(20\%)>𝑄𝑢𝑒𝑒𝑛𝑠(12\%)>𝑆𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑛𝐼𝑠𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑑(4\%)$$
While the percentage of noise complaints about almost all types of noise in borough Staten Island was extremely small,however, one of the interesting things we found here is that the percentage of noise complaints about 'Dog Barking' was the largest among the five boroughs.
Analysis of noise distribution characteristics in each borough¶
Staten island¶
Based on our research, we found that Staten island is one of the most suburban areas in the boroughs, with 2,500 acres of forest in the middle of staten island, including nearly 28 miles of trails and the last remaining intact forest in New York City. Compared with places like Manhattan and brooklyn, staten island is not as busy. The place is large and the environment is more natural,also, the average population is small. The older generation of white americans like to live in this borough. In our opinion, the reason why the noise complaint rate of ‘dog barking’ on Staten island is high can be explainedas follows. First of all, the natural environment is the best here among five boroughs and there are many open spaces, which are suitable for keeping dogs. From the age characteristics of the main living population, the retired elderly also have more time to keep dogs.
At this point, is the picture of Staten island already in your mind?
Next, we want to take a closer look at Noise:Dog barking in Staten Island.
The bar chart of the changes over the decade is shown as follows.
As it can be seen from the figure, complaints about barking dogs on Staten island soared in early 2019, but fell sharply by the end of the year. We wonder whether this change is unique to one borough or the entire city of New York, in order to distinguish, let's also take a look at bar plot in the other four boroughs.
From the above four bar plots, we figured out that it is not what we thought. The trend of the four zones is very different from the trend of the staten island. We therefore assume that it may be the result of local regulations or local natural disasters.
Brooklyn¶
We just mentioned that Brooklyn has the largest percentage of noise complaints in the loud music/party subcategory.
Generally, Brooklyn is a artistic neighborhood, and the overall atmosphere is more hippy,hence, people from Brooklyn like music and parties very much.
Similarly, bar plot is made according to the trend of the Loud/music party in Brooklyn in the past decade.Meanwhile, we also plot a 24-hour bar graph for decade.
As can be seen from the above two figures, the noise complaint rate of Loud music/party in Brooklyn has been on the rise in the past ten years, which has a lot to do with the development of economy, technology and population.
Moreover, the distribution of complaints is seasonal, with more complaints in summer and less in winter. We found that there were 9 popular music festivals in Brooklyn in the Summer of 2019, such as Seaside Summer Concert Series, Brooklyn hip-hop Festival, Brooklyn Folk Festival,etc., attracting people from all over New York and even the United States.They run from May to September, mostly from June to August.
It can be illustrate from the 24-hour bar chart, the volume of complaints in the evening is relatively high, while the volume of complaints in the daytime is relatively low, which is quite understandable. In the daytime, people are likely to be away from home and go to work, while when they need to sleep at night, they will be easily affected by loud music or party.
Manhattan¶
As can be seen from the bar chart, Manhattan accounts for a large proportion of noise complaints in both construction related noise, which are construction before/after hours and construction equipment, around 50% respectively.In addition, the percentage of noise complaints from air condition/ventilation equipment is far higher in Manhattan than in any of the other four boroughs.
According to Manhattan construction research Link, although Manhattan is already one of the most densely populated and built areas in New York, there are still many new buildings under construction. Figure below shows delivery year of Manhattan building from 2019 to 2024.
Moreover, it is worth mentioning that the public transportation in Manhattan is the most developed in New York, so the construction of transportation hubs, such as subway stations, should also be taken into consideration.
Bronx¶
The BRONX is the birthplace of hip-hop, so we believe that it is one of the reasons why the residents there love music. Therefore, in the top 10 noise complaints, Car/truck music and Loud music/party, two music-related noise complaints, accounted for the largest proportion.In addition to this, we wonder
whether the number of vehicles has a certain influence on the car music noise?Hence, we found statistics from NYCEDU on New York City car ownership rates in 2018.
The population density of Staten island is much lower than that of other boroughs. Even though the car ownership rate is the highest, the population density is much lower than the other four boroughs, hence, the proportion of noise complaints from car or truck horn in this borough is still relatively low.
Except for Staten island, Queens has the highest rate of car ownership, followed by the Bronx, while Manhattan has the lowest rate of car ownership, which we believe is because of the developed public transportation in Manhattan and it is not cost-effective to own a car in Manhattan.
In addition, the Bronx residents are mainly of African and Latin American descent, so we assume that the area has a relatively high number of active residents Coupled with the love of music, it is easy to understand why the noise of car music accounts for the largest proportion in this area.
Queens¶
Finally, let's take a look at Queens, we just mentioned the car ownership rate in New York, and from this point of view, Queens has the highest rate of car ownership and we consider that is the main reason why the noise complaints of Car/Truck horn is the highest in Queens.
Summary and Conclusion¶
To begin with, we presented the distribution of noise complaints in different boroughs to readers through the interactive map . The result is analyzed along with other information, population and propery price, to present the insight we found from the map. Here are what we discovered: Manhattan was the most noisy borough, followed by the Bronx and Brooklyn,while Queens and Statan Island were kind of quiet. Likewise, from the intractive map we noticed that some blocks in Manhattan was located inside the commercial area. As a result, the amount of noise complaints is very high. Additionally, we figured out that the distribution of noise is highly correlated with the distribution of population density. Also, there is a certain correlation between the distribution of noise and the housing price.
Moreover, based on the distribution of the top 10 noise subcategories in the five boroughs of New York in 2019, we have carried out some analysis and explored the possible reasons behind based on the interactive bar chart.
The characteristics of the types of noise complaints presented in each borough were combined with the analysis of population density statistics, construction status, car ownership rate, local culture and other aspects. Through the spatial distribution of noise complaints and a certain temporal distribution, we can understand the generalization and basic characteristics of the five boroughs of New York.
Manhattan, the financial center of New York, is the most densely populated place. Despite its small size, it has nearly ten times the population of staten island.With its mature public transportation, Manhattan has the highest volume of noise complaints related to construction, also due to the city's booming development.
Staten island, by contrast, is a popular resident place for older, white americans. In the suburbs of New York, while the natural environment is the most impressive with most green area, is the quietest place among the five boroughs.
The residents from Bronx and Brooklyn have a special love of music due to the culture and background. Thus, these two boroughs have the highest proportion of music-related noise complaints.
Finally, Queens, with its highest rate of car ownership, had far more noise complaints about car horn than the other four boroughs.
In order to obtain a more detailed and comprehensive analysis, more relevant data sets will be required and more analysis should be performed. The data set of NYC311 not only contains the problem and feedback information of citizens to the city, but also contains a lot of valuable information and the stories, which are worthy of our discovery, exploration, thinking and reflection.
This project was completed on May 15 2020 by DTU master students ¶
Qing Zheng (s192159) Shuai Wang (s200108) Zhijie Song (s200093) as a final project in the course 02806 Social Data Analysis and Visualization organized by DTU Professor Sune Lehmann Jørgensen. 